Historically, the beginning of June and through summer is the time when most people plan to exchange vows.

Many different theories exist as to why June is so popular for weddings, including it being the month named for the goddess Juno, the protector of women as well as being related to the Celtic calendar and required courtship timelines.

But before couples can walk down the aisle, they must get a license and the process for that has changed over time.

It wasn't until the mid-19th century that marriages were required to be registered when two people wed.

Before that, the government wasn't involved in weddings as it was seen as a contract between families.

The registration process slowly evolved into what we now know as marriage licenses.

The process now involves bringing an ID (required since 2013), paying the $82 dollar fee (unless the couple takes an eight-hour marriage course that drops the fee to $22, which was adopted in 2008) and waiting three days before holding the ceremony.

It was during the Texas 1929 joint legislative session that the three-day waiting period was approved, according to the state's historical association.

That's the same year legislators approved requiring a standard venereal-disease test before obtaining a marriage license.

That prerequisite changed slightly in 1949 when couples were required to get a blood test for venereal diseases prior to being allowed to wed. The requirement lasted until 1983, when legislators determined "citizens are better educated and informed and seek medical treatment and attention on their own."

With a laugh, Yvonne Smith said that wasn't a requirement when she and Winfred Smith married in 1945.

The Beaumont couple have been married nearly 70 years after tying the knot when she was just 16 and he was 21 and serving in the Navy.

"He finally asked my mother if we could get married and she said to wait a year and so we got married the next year on New Year's Day," she said. "We just got the license a couple of days before and got married. Our simple marriage ceremony worked out as well as the big, expensive ones that people have to have now."

Even though she was only a teenager when she married, Smith, now 85, said she was more mature than most other girls her age because she had to help her single mother with running the house.

If the Smiths were getting married today at their 1945 ages, they would need written approval from her mother.

Villasana-Sherry said underage couples do come into the clerk's office with their parents or guardians to get marriage licenses.

Young or old, Villasana-Sherry said, most couples give a chuckle when she asks the mandatory question of if they're related - something two people can't be if they want a marriage license to wed.

"Every single customer for a marriage license laughs because we have to ask if they're related - they think it's so funny," she said.

But she said she's had at least four couples come into the office in her 10 years there who were actually blood relatives trying to get a marriage license.

"The state's attorney said you can't marry someone who is your first cousin," she said.

But you can marry your military loved one who is on active duty - and you can waive the 72-hour waiting period.

Villasana-Sherry said that's one of her favorite things about the job - seeing people in wedding dresses and military uniforms coming to get a marriage license to wed before deployment.

"You see a lot and that's why I love this job so much," she said. "It's never just the same old stuff."